Kaleidoscope
by madame.alexandra
Summary: Everyone needs a little colour in their world. A smattering of Orange here, a burst of Blue there, some Reds, Greens, and Purples everywhere! A collection of colour-centric musings.
1. Orange

_A/N: Yes; another fic. I shouldn't be doing this, but I'm putting a few open-ended ones up simply to be able to write on them whenever the fancy strikes me. Each of these particular drabbles will center on a colour._

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_Orange: Stimulates enthusiasm and is associated with the warmth of the sun. Implies curiosity and creativity. Orange is the color associated with the Sacral Hara Chakra: Sexuality._

She liked orange.

Orange might be the universal outcast colour, because it was garish and didn't complement anything, but she still had a soft spot for it--even though wearing it made her look washed out and it clashed with her hair.

She liked that orange was so _warm_. It made her think of summer and citrus fruit and even the sun itself. She liked the thoughts of sandy beaches and no inhibitions, she liked the orange flip flops lying next to her on _this_ sandy beach, and she liked the intoxicatingly sensual smell of orange blossoms lingering in the air.

She _particularly_ liked the way Leroy Jethro Gibbs was lazily dragging his fingers up and down her leg, inching daringly higher every time.

Jenny Shepard closed her eyes and smiled wickedly as his hand grazed over her bikini bottoms and across her stomach, his touch making her skin so much hotter than the Mexican sun ever could.

Maybe Mexico was so enticing because of all the orange: the beaches, the fruits, the houses and clothes. It could be the _colour_ that induced her to recklessly agree to sneak off for a weekend tryst with _him_. Of course, it was unlikely that she'd be able to explain this if caught by stating that a secondary colour had the prim Director of NCIS flat on her back with one of her senior agents.

"What're you thinking about?" he mumbled, his words muffled against her shoulder.

Jenny licked her lips.

"Orange," she replied, rolling towards him languidly.

She propped herself up on an elbow and took a moment to enjoy the quirked eyebrow and questioning look on his face. Smiling mischievously, she threw a leg over him and pulled herself up, straddling him.

"Oranges," he repeated hesitantly, adding the '_s_', giving her an amused look.

She nodded slowly and leaned forward, taking his hands from his sides and stretching them out behind his head, so her nose was close to his and her hair fell over his face, tickling his skin. She felt his sharp intake of breath and smirked.

"The colour," she clarified mildly, as she paused watching him. "The _fruit_, too," she added in a lower voice, lacing her fingers into his and digging her nails into the hot sand.

Jethro swallowed.

"What about it?" he asked hoarsely.

"Tastes good," she answered, kissing him lazily, "Warm colour. Like an aphrodisiac," she kissed him again, pinning his hands back into the sand when he tried to break loose. She gave him a quick, admonishing look and pressed her sun-heated skin against his bare torso, dragging her lips up to his ear so she could whisper to him.

"I wonder what the juice would taste like if I licked it off your skin," she murmured, pulling his ear into her mouth teasingly.

He groaned quietly, straining at her vice-grip on his hands.

"Thought you didn't _like_ oranges, Jen," he recalled huskily.

She bit gently on his earlobe and pulled back slightly to look him devilishly in the eye. She made a huge point of not answering.

Of course Jethro would remember she had no preferential taste for the stringy, pithy fruit. He wouldn't know she just liked the thought of the colour tinting his skin, running over his lips.

She gripped his hands tightly, her nails leaving crescent marks on his knuckles.

She held onto that thought and pressed her open mouth against his neck, nudging his head up, flicking her tongue out along his collarbone. His muscles tightened and she smiled, loving what she did to him. His hands curled under hers.

"Jethro," she called, dragging it out breathily.

She bit into his shoulder and felt him shiver. If she knew him at all, her slow tease through an orange-haze of sexual fantasies was going to have to relent before she shattered his impressive self-control. His breathing caught and she started to slowly unlace their fingers, dragging her nails down his wrists and over his arms smoothly.

"Make me see orange," she practically purred in his ear.

Jethro clutched her arm and flipped her over, sliding her bikini down. He wrapped her legs around his waist and pushed into her, his movements hard and quick; he wasted no time in making her throw her head back and beg him to shove her over the edge.

He shuddered against her and her release hit her hard, knocking rational thought from her mind. Jethro collapsed next to her, his face buried in her hair, his lips moving wordlessly against her neck. Jenny gasped and shifted towards him, drawing her hand up and down his spine.

"I think orange is my favorite color," she informed him throatily.

His shoulders shook and she felt his laughter reverberate through his chest.

Jenny took a deep breath and let the orange blossoms fill her senses until she was light-headed and dizzy.

Or maybe that was from the sex.

Whichever it was, the Director decided she what she liked most about orange was what it made Jethro do to her.

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_--Before anyone corrects my spelling, just know 'colour' or 'color' can be spelled two ways, as 'grey' and 'gray'. I prefer the English version._

_Alexa_


	2. Red

_A/N: This one's really **not** for the kiddies._

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_Red: Red is hot; it conjures up strong emotions from sexual passion to violent warfar. Number one choice of males. Is a symbol of aggression, thirst, passion._

He'd always had a thing for redheads.

Leroy Jethro Gibbs had a weakness, a fancy and a fetish, for a good-looking, long-legged, redhead and it sure as hell wasn't a dirty little secret. He'd chalked it up to the difference, the exoticism; not many women had the courage to flaunt red locks when blonde or brunette was the social preference. It wasn't until Jennifer Shepard that he realized it was just the sheer sex appeal of the damn color.

Red was fire. Red was heat, passion, pulsing blood, temper and sex and that was it, pure and simple. Some women had the hair but not the _color_; their curls were crimson but their personalities were dull, maybe pink.

Jenny personified red. No; she didn't just personify it; she damn near owned it.

His memories of her, his thoughts of her and his fantasies about her, were envisioned through a haze of intoxicating red film and riddled with the eerie, imagined feel of her silken red hair brushing against his face and shoulders.

Red like the barely-there, nearly non-existent bikini she'd flaunted in Positano, worn for mere moments before it had ended up half-buried in sand on an Italian beach in the cool black cloak of night, tossed forgotten to the side as he made love to her at the foot of the ocean with his hands fisted tight in that mesmerizing red hair.

Red reminiscent of the sinful, seductive ruby silk dress she donned in Paris for a night on the town, complete with matching red stilettos lacing up silky long legs that begged to be wrapped around his waist, much like they were later that night when he took her impatiently and almost violently against a wall in their hotel room, unable to wait, the sharp stilettos scratching his back as she moaned and cried his name and her sweaty crimson hair tumbled down her back.

He tortured himself with thoughts of red roses sprinkled over a scalding hot bath in Madrid while she stood in the center of the bullpen, berating him for his communication skills. He dredged up hot, heavy memories of a passionate, sweltering night in Serbia in the height of summer when she'd worn the most delicate of red lace lingerie.

He made her angry on purpose so he could watch her pulse jump in her jaw and imagine the blood pulsing beneath her skin. He wanted to wage war with words until she was seeing red and he was seeing red and fighting down arousal and the ache to throw her over her desk. He provoked the anger because he craved the passion he remembered so well from years past, from a partnership fraught with sex and temper, with arguments that ended in messy sheets and slick skin. Her hair displayed her personality to the nines: sexually charged, powerful, unstoppable and fierce. He was a sadist for making her angry, making her hate him, because her fiery, flammable anger was his aphrodisiac where their fights had been her foreplay.

He dreamt of lacquered red nails, red scratches down his back and arms, red marks on her neck left by his mouth to claim her, red wine and soaking wet red curls spread out in a tangled mess on a canvas of white sheets.

Maybe it was that the carmine, devil-in-every-strand color of her hair and the pale white innocence of her skin mixed with his shocking ice blue eyes painted a picture of patriotism any good marine couldn't ignore; maybe it was the tantalizing flush of her fair skin when she was angry, or hot, embarrassed or—god help him for thinking it—aroused. Whatever it was, it had something to do with Jenny. Any damn woman could wear red; Jenny could twist and draw all of the naughty, hidden, sexy secrets out of the color and wear it proudly still.

And she sure as hell knew it. Her cocky, sensual, arrogant flaunting of her scarlet-copper curls and the sensual, pretty little pout of her lips while coated in a shock of vermillion lipstick was why she ended up tangled with him in a cramped supply closet downstairs, her pencil-grey skirt yanked up her thighs so he could find the silk, candy-apple red panties he knew she was wearing under it. That wicked, tempting color was why her blouse was ruined in his pursuit of the matching bra, and why the blush spread over her unblemished and oh-so-touchable skin as he thrust into her and once again muffled his groans in her thick red hair.

Red was the color of the lipstick left on his mouth and neck after she came undone, red were her swollen, sore lips as he shuddered against her and she bit them to quiet her screams; red was her nose and her pretty cheeks at the shameful indignity and unspeakable thrill of being fucked by her former partner in the forensics lab. Red was all he saw when he buried himself in her and listened to her ragged breathing and the pulsing of her heart and inhaled the spicy scent of her messy and ruined red curls.

Which was why, even as the supply closet door opened and the shocked and gleeful eyes of one Abby Scuito fell on them and Jenny moaned in nothing more than shamed embarrassment, he didn't give a damn that he was caught red-handed.

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_I feel like I should go pray or something._

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	3. Yellow

_'Look at the stars. Look how they shine for you, and everything you do. Yeah they were all yellow.' Coldplay, Yellow. _

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_Yellow: speaks of joy and happiness, and often wisdom. Yellow engergizes. It is cheerful and clear, offering awareness. Yellow is associated with the Sacral Hara Chakra: Identity._

She loved the yellow in sunflowers. They were so bright, so welcoming, and so happy to turn their expansive, beautiful faces towards her. They were her second-favorite flower, the best for cheering her up, the bearer of sunflower seeds and fresh western smells and the brighteners of every room.

She loved the yellow in daffodils and roses, a symbol of friendship and laughter; she deemed yellow the best colour for flowers, along with her beloved orchid purple and deep crimson rose. She loved the yellow in daisies, a bursting stain of colour amidst the delicate white.

She loved the scorched, burnt yellow of tall stalks of dying grass in open fields, whispering softly as they danced in autumn wind. She held close memories of being chased through yellow fields and stumbling to the ground giggling—Serbian fields, where the jaundiced stalks of grass kept memories of love making and sweet nothings whispered.

She loved the yellow in bumble bees, though most disliked the buzzing creatures. To her they were harmless and cute, and it amused her to watch them flit purposefully from flower to flower, an emblem of her favourite season.

She loved the yellow in bananas, almost more than she liked the fruit. Bananas could perk up every room; they reminded her of the tropics and soothing ocean waves. She loved the yellow of lemons because it was more shocking and more effervescent; exciting.

She loved yellow finches and canaries, whether in the zoo or in the wild. She enjoyed the melodious, joyful tone of their chirping and the determination they carried on with. The bright saffron birds gave a voice to the cozy sunny feel of the colour that reminded her why sunflowers and daises, bumble bees and bananas, were all so pleasing to her in the first place.

She loved yellow in beach sand and nail polish.

She liked Curious George's yellow hat.

She loved yellow in baby chicks and painted eggs on Easter.

She loved yellow leaves fallen to the ground in autumn, beautiful even in their end.

She loved yellow ribbons for the classy romantic nostalgia they broadcasted. She liked the yellow in the Navy because it reminded her of the same things; she liked Coldplay's light and fluffy song about yellow.

Yellow soothed her.

Yellow...reminded her of Jethro when he smiled. Pleased, content, happy. Genuine.

She liked yellow on Jethro.

Yellow offset his eyes beautifully; it made them shine like sapphires and sparkle like saltwater in the coral reefs of the Jamaican islands. She loved the old yellow shirt he was so attached to, faded now though once bright—a shirt she'd seen countless times in Europe that had been the only clue to his origins. It was tattered, torn, and well-loved by one Leroy Jethro Gibbs, with two faded words stamped across it in purple: _Stillwater High_.

She loved yellow on him. It just looked good. She'd missed it for so long…

She loved yellow because it reminded her of him, and when it did, it wasn't painful. Yellow thoughts and memories of him didnt hurt. They tickled.

To her, yellow would never smack of jealousy or discontent. It didn't have the ability. It was clarity and awareness and creativity. It had spice.

There was nothing coloured yellow that bespoke of bad things.

She loved yellow in the stars, and how they shone so brightly against the inky black sky. She'd loved looking up at them from her back in that Serbian field. She'd loved the glow cast over Jethro from the stars. The stars were warm, in yellow.

She loved the enveloping heat of yellow. She loved the sun. She liked it breaking through her window and spilling over the bed in the mornings, whether it was lighting up her morning alone or a morning she'd shared with her blue-eyed lover.

She loved early mornings, when the kiss of the sun was so gentle and not yet steaming, when the world around her was cast in a soft tawny-amber glow and the very rays of Helios soothed the atmosphere and permeated her skin, easing her mood.

Yellow was soothing, warm, loving, gentle, exciting, bright, and caring. It cropped up everywhere. It was unexpected. It was a splash of colour she appreciated a little eccentrically.

It had the power to make her happy.

The colour of laughter was yellow.

In this late morning, basking in the balmy heat of the sun, she curled her toes into the green grass and smiled, her skin protected from the sun's touch with a pale honey-yellow bathrobe, she relished the alluring light and the peace.

From behind her, strong arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her flush against a hard chest, warm enough to rival the sun's formidable temperature. She smiled, her eyes drooping, leaning into him.

"Sun makes your skin glow," he said gruffly, his lips brushing against her throat.

Jenny smiled, turning in his arms. She smirked softly and tilted her head, small fingers plucking at the worn material of that damn shirt. She found a hole in the yellow cotton and pushed her finger though it, stroking his bare chest playfully.

"I like your shirt," she whispered, wrinkling her nose.

She laughed when he bent to kiss her, smiling into his welcome lips.

Yellow made her smile.

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_"Nature's first light is gold--her hardest hue to hold." --Robert Frost, "Nothing Gold Can Stay"_


	4. Pink

_"A Woman should be pink and cuddly for a man"--Jayne Mansfield_

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_Pink: the universal colour of love; A quiet colour that lovers of beauty favor. Think/Wear pink to discourage aggression and violence. Self-worth is pink._

Men aren't supposed to like pink.

In fact, they are pretty much simply not allowed to express any sort of interest or appreciation for such a frilly, feminine colour. It is a macho rule ingrained into them from birth—perhaps even hard wired into their genetic code.

Men do not like _pink_.

Or so the stereotype goes. Ever a one to break the barriers of conventional and kick rules to the curb, Leroy Jethro Gibbs likes pink. To a certain extent, that is—and in a certain way.

He likes it when it is on her, whether in a garment or a delicate flush of her porcelain skin, and he likes it when reminds him of her, which it often does. He likes it when Jenny Shepard experiments with pink because that is such a rare occasion.

Pink carnations, for example, spoke of Jenny. A pink carnation placed by her elegant hands in his buttonhole for some stifling, godforsaken white-collar event back when they'd barely touched based on what their partnership could be, and the memory of how she'd told him mildly that a pink carnation meant (in the language of flowers) _I will never forget you_.

And no, he had never forgotten her.

He likes pink mingled with Jenny; craves it, because such a thing is an uncommon occurrence. She is so far removed from the associations of pink—the fragility, demure girlishness, and stigmatized weakness of it that it is like a secret when she wears it, and it is an intimacy that he knows she likes it.

Pink is soft and gentle; it is quiet and soothing. It is everything she is not with her strength and her confidence, all her intelligence, class, and seduction and yet...it is her in a way only he can understand.

She likes pink in her candles and bubble bath, and pink in the cozy house slippers she wears in the coldest days of winter. Pink is not a colour she wears to work or to be seen in, it is a colour she wears or admires when she feels sentimental, a colour that subtly helps her hold on to feminism in a man's world.

He likes her in pink.

He likes that softness in her, the part of her that makes her kind and caring for other people, the loving nature that is brought out by pink.

He likes the compassion and innocence of pink, characteristics that he can see flicker in her green eyes, and he loves how the pink tint of her skin with a blush can look so very innocent when he knows that she is anything but.

He loves the pale pink of her lips when they're bare of lipstick in the mornings, wiped clean and stained only with the slight reddening given to them by the pressure of biting down to suppress a moan or a cry elicited by his hands or his kiss.

He likes the days when she wears soft salmon or coral lipstick instead of the harsh red—though the carmine is sexy, the coral makes him want to wrap his arms around her and kiss her softly until she smiles.

He likes the silk and lace lingerie she has that is light rose and pastel fuchsia. It always looks so good with her wine red hair and white skin, the very essence of her wild, formidable side watered down and mixed with her inherently feminine side.

He loves her blush, the way it spreads across the bridge of her nose when she's flattered or if someone has managed to embarrass her—usually him. He loves the tempting pink flush of her fair skin when he brushes his lips against her neck or touches her waist.

He loves the way the colour creeps into her cheeks when she's laughing, twisting under him while he's tickling her, literally tickled pink, and he likes the darker red that mixes with the light rose as he runs his fingertips over her and marks each touch with his mouth.

He loves the cotton candy pink that always lacquers her toenails.

He loves how secluded pink is in her, and how part of a personality it is. He loves that it is like a part of her only he can see, something she indulges in privately like he indulges in his penchant for pink only in reference to her.

He loves that she lets him see pink in her.

He shifts from his back in chaotic mass of sheets and brushes strands of tangled crimson hair away from her face and she blinks, awoken from a sleep. His hands run over her soft skin under the blankets and she turns towards him, seeking warmth, cuddling up.

He grins and places a kiss to her temple, just above her eye, and she wrinkles her nose, her familiar, pink flush dancing across her nose, this one reserved just for him in the silence of morning when she was completely herself and content in the way they loved each other.

"I love it when you blush," he growls, moving his lips to the corner of her mouth.

He runs his hands over her ribs as if drawing a feather there and she giggles, squirming away from him. He grins and repeats the assault, pulling her close to him and listening to her laugh, his lips murmuring seductively against the natural bare pink of hers.

He forgets about pink and thinks about Jen instead.

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_Disclaimer: I do not necessarily agree with the quote at the beginning, but I think of it as how Jethro likes to see Jenny when she's not stressed and kicking ass. _


	5. Green

_"Green is the colour of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises." --Pedro Calderon de la Barca_

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_Green: Life, Harmony, and balance. Green speaks of desire and of stability, of self-respect and well-being. Green is the colour associated with the HEART CHAKRA (consciousness and love)._

Green is a cool, earthy colour. It is fresh and exuberant and sharp and harmonic. It comes in shades and hues; mint and chartreuse, grass and emerald, kelly and army. Different greens with the same beauty, because they all remind him of her.

She wears green, and it catches his eye. It looks damn good on her; it accentuates her fiery hair and makes him think her white skin might taste like spearmint if he pressed his lips to it. The best shade on her is emerald, but any green will do.

She loves green; it is Jenny Shepard's designated favorite colour. She says it makes her feel peaceful, but he's sure she knows it's drop dead gorgeous on her—even better looking than red or black, and she wears those colours like she owns them.

She always has her toenails painted green; dark, shimmery, swirling green that looks like the night sky if it were made of fir trees. She loves the fresh cut, healthy green grass of summer and burying her toes in it, barefoot and relaxed.

She doesn't quite have a green thumb, but she adores flowers; she thinks the green stems are perfect and look good with any flower, no matter the colour. Even orange, and orange and green are her self-declared worst combination.

She loved the mossy sage green of the expansive fields in Serbia.

At Christmas, she doesn't care much for the red, but she's all about the green.

And you will never catch her without green on when St. Patrick's Day comes around.

He knows she loves green; he knows it's comforting and stable and beautiful to her, and he knows she loves to wear it.

And though he admires the subtle glint of a jade earring in her ear, or the elegant material of a silky viridian green evening gown—though his mouth goes dry at the sight of laced-up, strappy, apple-green stilettos and he loves to see her in delicate lacey mint green lingerie—ah, as much as he loves green on her, it's her stunning sharp eyes that do him in every time.

_Green_. Bright, alert, large, liquid, shimmering, intoxicating.

Her pine-forest eyes are mischievous and clever, soft and beautiful, and they speak volumes. They understand him. Her eyes are more than stunningly pretty; they're deep, voluminous, and passionate—full of emotion and layered, so many different colours blended into one.

Leafy and gentle when she's content and lazy, awoken from a sleepy or just falling into one.

Jade viridian when she's challenged, threatened or angry—harsh, brutal, and formidable.

Aqua, kelly green when she's happy and laughing; they charm and mesmerize.

Olive and dull when she's sad or crying; the moments when he pulls her close because it's the one time he doesn't want to look in her eyes.

Emerald when she's aroused, when she's pressing her lips to his or pulling him close to her, tangled up with him.

Emerald and brilliant when it's just them.

Her eyes are resplendent and alluring, and he knows damn well he's not the only one drawn to them like a moth to a flame, and just the look he can see in other men's eyes when they catch her gaze turns him into the Green-eyed monster.

God, he loves those radiant, malachite, peacock-proud eyes of hers.

A small, soft hand rests on his chest and she shifts in bed next to him, leaning up sleepily, a languid smile on her face.

"Morning, Jethro," she murmurs, her long crimson hair tumbling over her shoulder as she meets his eyes and leans forward to kiss him.

He tangles a hand in her hair and wraps his arms around her, tugging her closer to him and tightening his grip.

"Mmm," she sighs. "Happy St. Patrick's Day," and there's a wicked grin on her lips as she breaks away and her eyes flash playfully.

She pinches his biceps lightly.

"You're not wearing green," she whispers smugly.

He doesn't have the heart to pinch her back, even though he has the right becasue, well, technically, she's not _wearing_ it either. He can't pinch her. Not when her eyes are so breathtakingly emerald.

Not when green is a _part_ of her.

She smiles at him.

He smirks, and figures he should thank the fabled Luck O' the Irish for the green-eyed redhead in his bed.

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_Cultural Note: I'm not sure if this is done elsewhere, but in America if you don't where green on St. Patrick's Day, you get pinched. Usually quite hard. _


	6. Blue

_Blue: __blue is calming; soothing. Blue is the colour of truth and tranquility. Blue is the colour associated with the Throat Chakra, helping with communication. _

_"Blue eyes say love me or I die..." -Spanish Proverb_

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Trust me, forget-me-not blue.

That was the umbrella term she used to describe his eyes; the definitive denotation that popped into her head immediately when she looked into his eyes, and the very first way his eyes made her feel, even before she fell in love with him.

She had never thought any part of Jethro fell anything short of handsome, and all that was handsome could easily be called sexy when they were in bed, but his eyes were his crowning glory.

Windows to the soul; his eyes said everything. It was ultimate subtlety, the blue orbs' ability to convey his emotions, or comfort her, without the man himself having to speak a word. His eyes made her love him and then broke her heart the last time she looked into them before she walked away—and the first time she looked into them yet again after six damn long years.

His eyes were like a cool drink of water. The royal aquamarine was tranquil and calming; his peaceful, composed gaze was sometimes more soothing than the gentle touch of his hand or a quiet word of assurance. Sometimes, she just had to look at the sapphires and feel safe.

It was like looking into an ocean.

She had never before thought a man's eyes could affect her like this, but Leroy Jethro Gibbs said so much with his eyes. He hated her with them, he apologized with them, he teased her with them, aroused her with them, told her he needed her with them.

Those striking eyes of his could hold so much anger. They could be cold, impenetrable chips of ice, a wintry gaze to freeze the fire of hell. His rage—or pain, both emotions hardened his eyes to sky-blue crystal glaciers, could be so intense, so powerful. She hated to fight with him because of the hardness and the pale blue frost that would steal over his eyes.

She needed the blue. It was the blue, and all of the essence that the icy blue spoke of. The blue eyes, the blue colour mostly, could describe him like nothing else; blue like ice, and then blue when ice melted into water.

She needed his eyes sometimes.

She wanted his eyes more than sometimes.

They were enticing; intoxication. They held so much pride and honour. He made her knees weak when he looked at her with a cerulean blaze, his mouth inches from hers, navy boring into her own forest-green eyes. Sometimes, those baby blues could send a blush born of blatant sexual desire right to her toes.

She loved kissing him with her eyes open, looking at him, watching his eyes darken to royal azure and burn with raw arousal. The look was enough to stop her breath, make her want him more than anything.

His strong eyes, always cautious, guarded, and mesmerizing, were what she wanted to see after a day from hell. She loved to see the yellow sun rise in them in the morning, curled up to him in bed.

She loved that intimacy they had that meant more often than not; all it took was a look. A look to incite desire, to cry for help, to provoke a smile, erase tears, elicit a blush, say _you matter to me_.

It was such a beautiful colour, blue. She'd never known it to be so beautiful before she associated it with Jethro. Every emotion and shade and feeling she associated with his blue eyes applied equally to him, and it solidified into a sort of blue that defined him, in a psychological way. She wanted blue blankets on her bed when she was alone and missing him, to pull over her head and make her thing she was engulfed in his blue, blue eyes.

"Jethro," she murmured, running her tongue over her bottom lip, tasting the fiery sweetness of his bourbon. "Look at me," she requested softly, in the dark of his basement.

He glanced over at her, lifting an eyebrow mildly, leaning against the counter next to her.

His eyes were a mix of languid periwinkle and sexual indigo, liquid, deep, penetrating. More than anything, she loved the honesty, the smirk, and the faintest touch of vulnerability that defined his eyes when it was them and them alone.

Jenny brushed her knuckles against his neck, pulling his lips against hers. She kissed him slowly, staring into those trust me, forget-me-not irises she knew like her own soul.

She smiled against his lips. She had the _blues_ for her silver-haired-lover in the best possible sense of the phrase.

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_"Blue are the words I say and what I think. Blue are the feelings that live inside of me-I'm blue..." -I'm Blue (song) by Eiffel 65._


	7. White

___White: __white is the colour of purity. white is the colour of kindness. It is calming, represents truth and openeness, and provides clarity and completion. Brides wear white for Virginity. White is fresh. _

_"White...is not a mere absence of colour; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black...God paints in many colours; but He never paints so gorgeously...as when He paints in white." -G.K. Chesterton_

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_White is the colour of innocence and purity—HA.

Likening _innocence_ to her fair skin is a mockery of the very definition of the word.

Beautiful; yes. Enticing; oh yes. Demure, even.

Innocent? Never.

God, he loved her expensive, lace-white skin.

It wasn't a _pure_, _innocent_ love, either; it was a lustful, animal passion, his penchant for her skin. If the snowy, pristine colour wasn't enough, then it was the sharp contrast her clothing choices wrought from it. Her emerald green evening gowns and jet black cocktail dresses, firecracker red lingerie and royal purple cashmere sweaters gave her pale skin such an ethereal, tantalizing glow that it mimicked vanilla ice cream in its mouth-watering whiteness, and he always, _always_ wanted to run his tongue over it.

He could let his eyes roam over her skin for hours, whether he was covertly eying some suggestively cut designer gown from across a stiff-necked White House dinner or studying some exposed column of her throat as she bent _studiously_ over case reports or lazily drinking in the sight of her exposed back as she lay sleeping in his bed, wrinkled sheets slipping off of her to expose some expanse of her smooth shoulders.

He liked how soft her skin was and how warm.

He liked running his hand, his fingers, and then his lips gently over her back, down her spine, while she rested in limbo between sleep and alertness next to him. It made him fiercely proud to know, as he watched her rule the agency from her high horse, that underneath her prim and neat suits, her ivory skin was marked by bruises on her hips and shoulders in the shapes of his fingertips, because that's what she meant to him: passion and sexually expressed emotion, and her creamy, lily skin bore the brunt of that.

He liked her on her back, breathing shallowly, just flushed enough to make her ice queen skin look kissed by pink and frosted in dew, because he knew only he could make her feel like that, and only he was allowed to see her like that, sated and relaxed and free of tension and stress.

He liked her in his sheets and in his arms, her red hair spread in ravished tangles on his pillows, her aroused skin, like so many white diamonds and shimmery pearls, kissed and possessed by his mouth and his alone.

Spending the night with Jenny was like spending a night wrapped in white satin: damn good.

He had never seen her skin as anything but perfect, even when he traced his fingers over the battle scars left from torture in Cairo and mistakes they'd made in Europe, even when she bitched about the scars that stitches left and the permanent blemish imposed by a severe knife wound. All he saw was clean alabaster skin, never able to hold the bronze of a tan, but occasionally be speckled with the faintest of tawny freckles.

It irked him that some of those scars he had no chance of preventing, and one too many of those scars had been the result of his inability to react fast enough.

Even if her skin was burdened with white lies and some lies bigger, and scary things and sad things, too, it was still beautiful and attractive in its ivory allure, like forgiveness; a blank canvas that was his to paint something better on.

It should be a sin for a woman to have inebriating skin like this.

The absence of innocence her milky skin brooked was filled by an intangible arrogance—no, not arrogance; a classiness, old-fashioned pride and coy femininity. She could be arrogant, but he could just as easily snatch the rug of arrogance from beneath her stiletto-clad feet and render her at a loss for fancy words.

Her skin was tough, to speak proverbially, but fragile, to speak physically. She bruised easily, but it seemed never to hurt her. She never showed it. He made sure he was the one to soothe the injuries when they bloomed, physical or no.

He liked her skin best when she was content; then it glowed.

He reached over her shoulder now and locked his fingers tightly in hers, placing a swift kiss to the back of her neck, just below her ear, his teeth grazing her vein, and she shivered again, a soft moan escaping her lips. He could feel every inch of her bare skin against him, silk in all but name, and he bit down gently on her shoulder and breathed in her scent, tightening his grip on her, his nails digging into her hip.

That white was the colour of purity and innocence was a fallacy—what Jenny Shepard did to him was in no form or fashion innocence. It was reasonably acceptable to christen white the colour of intoxication, in his case.

Whatever the prissy definition, Leroy Jethro Gibbs occupied himself in getting under her Snow White skin in every which way.

* * *

_"Nights in white satin never reaching the end..." -'Nights in White Satin'; The Moody Blues_


	8. Purple

_"What is it? What has she done?" -Ambassador Chapuys of Spain  
"She is wearing purple, and purple is the colour of royalty." -George Boleyn.  
[the Tudors, season 1]_

* * *

_Purple: __Purple is used to symbolize royalty, majesty, and mystery. It is believed to be the ideal colour; a perfect combination of cool and warm colours. Purple connects with a higher self. Violet is associated with the Crown Chakra. _

Wearing purple makes her feel powerful.

Fitting, considering purple is universally renowned as the colour of royalty.

The dress was couture, a treat necessary for enduring a night of flattering government officials and simpering over senators who directed funds to NCIS—if they could be so convinced by the pretty director. She drew the line at ass-grabbing, but not at ass-_kissing_, if it suited her, and this evening gown fit the bill for such activities in that it was seduction itself.

It hugged her tight around her breasts and torso until it reached her hips, where it seamlessly flowed into a silky satin skirt that fell like a purple waterfall, sleek and elegant. A slit up the side was in absentia, but taking its place as evening eye-catcher was the daringly cut back, which plunged low, bunching with delicate grace just above where it mattered. Slung low and loose over her bare back were two sleek ribbons of the same rich purple fabric, starkly coloured against her pale skin, and begging for someone to slip his fingers underneath them, or tug them gently.

But only one man was allowed that coveted liberty.

But she mustn't entertain notions of that pesky Leroy Jethro Gibbs, not when admiration was due to this perfectly purple dress.

Jenny Shepard didn't love purple, she relished it. She reigned over it and coveted it. It was strange that she wouldn't describe it as her favorite colour (no; that was blue, for reasons that should remain known to her alone) yet she craved it, collected it, and wanted it.

Purple had an air of sovereignty, prestige, and privilege. Its connotation of royalty brought out her confidence and a little bit of her arrogance; she controlled a room differently when she was wearing purple.

It was the perfect mix of cold blue and hot red; her angry, passionate red-head temperament mixed with the icy, snow-princess demeanor she often projected perfectly mixed to colour her shades of violet.

Orchids were purple, her favorite flower, the unorthodox bloom she chose to cherish as opposed to the well-loved roses and daisies of simpler women. Well, simpler women liked pink, didn't they?

It was a noble colour, and it was regal, and it gave her dominance. She rarely wore purple nail polish because in it she was dangerous, and Christ help the man who stumbled across her on a day when she donned the expensive, La Perla dark amethyst lingerie.

Purple was such a mystery. It could be light, flirty, feminine in the way pink never was—because pink implied delicate weakness, and purple was strength and untouchable attraction. It was coy and clever and woven with aristocracy.

Cleopatra's favorite colour had been purple. As a girl, she had always admired Cleopatra—a woman who, in a time when it was unheard of, did whatever the fuck she wanted, and damn naysayers to hell.

Purple was moody, deep, thoughtful. It was scarce when it came to representation in food, imperfect in most clothing, and sharp, and rare in nature. Alice Walker once mused that when someone walks by the colour purple without noticing, it must piss God off.

And it pissed Jenny off, too. Purple was her colour. Her consort. And her contemporaries ought to respect it. Kiss its boots.

Her Jethro liked her looks in green, she knew, and he had such a male obsession with red and black, but it was purple—only she knew—that took the intensity of their relationship to an unspoken and provocative level unique to the two of them.

They were two leaders, two stubborn people drawn to each other, and when she wore purple he knew she wanted a challenge, a fight, or a chase, and he obliged, and he attacked. Sometimes purple meant silence, and in silence is when they had always learned most about each other.

She wore no attractive lace bra with this dress; the design of the bust didn't allow. She did, however, match a pair of French lace, flatteringly cut lavender panties with it, making sure the lace didn't rise above the bunched material of the dress' back.

She smirked at her reflection, noting the mulberry lipstick that graced her lips, the swift, hint of pomegranate eye shadow that highlighted her green eyes. In a twist of historical fashion, her hair was curled; loose all around her shoulders, but it was pulled back at the skull with a designer headband that matched her dress. It looked innocent. Sweet.

It in no way embodied the royal power of purple, or the sharp, commanding heliotrope of her fierce personality.

Downstairs, she heard an irritated thump; her security detail becoming irritated, waiting for her to appear. And seconds later, interrupting her admiration of her amaranthine vision and breaking into her plum reverie, the man who she fantasized about ripping through the thin ribbons slung across her back prowled into the room, annoyed, searching for the quarry he had to hawkishly "guard" at this eminent White House event.

She glanced through her eyelashes at him, turnin her neck slightly, her nose up, as he moved behind her back, his movements only faltering for a moment as he looked over her. Her shoulders hardly moved as she inhaled his scent, her shoulders straight and prim as he moved up behind her, one hand running possessively over her shoulder and down over her exposed back.

He curled his hand around one of the ribbons and tugged gently.

"Long live the Queen," he growled, his lips close to her ear.

It was some cruel inside joke between them now. She met his eyes in the mirror, and smiled, softer than a smirk, and sharper than a simper. She wanted to be purple as much as she wanted to wear it tonight.

And tonight, in the cloak of the starry post-midnight frolic, he was the only one allowed to see all the pristine purple hit the floor.

_

* * *

_'_I could be violet sky. I could be hurtful. I could be purple.' -Grace Kelly by Mika_


	9. Black

_"Black is real sensation, even if it is produced by entire absence of light. The sensation of black is distinctly different from the lack of all sensations." - Hermann von Helmholtz_

__

_

* * *

_

_Black: __Black is authoritative; powerful; black can evoke strong emotions; black can be the colour of war [Aztec culture] and a harbinger of sophistication._

There are several different stereotypes, connotations, and associations that accompany the word 'black'. They range from negative to positive, male to female and vibrant to subtle.

Black.

'Tis a loaded, his-and-hers sort of colour.

There is a way _he_ sees her in black:

In black, she is classy; regal and refined, like an impeccably raised southern belle or English debutante. She is elegant. Black makes people look at her. It's stark against her white skin. It's even blacker when it mixes with her red hair. It's what she wears to be taken seriously—when she wants to be heard and not looked at.

In black, she is seductive.

In black she is poised, and coquettish. Obviously intelligent and at the same time coy. She is alluring. As much as he likes her in other colours—in reds and greens and purples; and as much as his eyes hunger to see lingerie in that colour, it's when he sees her in some fancy black get-up that he wants her most. He knows the lingerie underneath is thinnest black lace, because black on black never goes out of style.

In black, she is a force to be reckoned with.

In black, she's more of a mystery than she usually is. She's unreadable. She's cool.

In black, she's absolutely beautiful.

In black, she's everything.

She's his.

There is a way _she_ sees _him_ in black:

In black he is rugged; he is powerful, like scandalous romance novel heroes or pirates or…or Batman. Sometimes he looks like the suave, refined knight-in-armor, sometimes the conniving bad guy in a James Bond movie. The silver hair adds a little, but it's really just the piercing blue eyes and the way he wears black. He's up-to-no-good. He's secretive.

In black, he's sexy.

In black, he is virile, and devilish. Charming and at the same time, a threat. He is intoxicating to her; in a tuxedo, in a charcoal polo, or just a plain black t-shirt. She likes the way the black goes with him. With his personality. She can't keep her hands off of him in a tuxedo.

In black, he is more dangerous than he often pretends to be. He's cryptic. He's cold.

In black, he is unquestionably handsome.

In black, he's so much.

He's hers.

There is a way they see black in each other.

There is darkness in both of them. The inky mire of covert ops and murder mixed in taints both their souls; raven and sable and obsidian mistakes and onyx emotions reside within their hearts, under their skin, and they understand the darkness in each other. The black.

Their relationship was/is/will be black, and black has so many definitions. So many connotations, metaphors—and each embodied in some way, in one of them: classy, devilish, rugged, mysterious, etc.

Black to her and black to him is not the absence of light (or the absence of colour) but the result of many colours and many experiences, emotions, and occurrences; black to them is what has resulted from the meshing of their everything.

Black is good; and black is bad.

And black clothes are strewn all over the stairs and the floor after they make love in the cloak of starry black night.


	10. Grey

_"Everything in life is grey, you know." -Jeanette Walls_

_

* * *

_

_Grey: Grey is classic; it is the perfect neutral. It is the colour of wisdom, the Christian colour of Lent, it is authoritative and often elegant. The human eye can distinguish 500 shades of grey. _

Grey is the colour of the elephant in the room.

Grey is the neutral, safe, controlled colour of the area they were in.

Grey is the colour of '_there isn't going to be any off the job'_.

Since she left him in Paris, and since she walked backed into his life as Director of NCIS, grey is how they live their lives. Because black would mean hatred, and irreconcilable broken hearts, and white would mean love, and head-over-heels forgiveness. Neither of them wants any of what black or white has to offer; they run deeper.

And so, grey is their colour.

Their relationship, their interaction, is ashen and dusty granite—it is intangible and undefined and she likes that way; he likes it that way. It is infinitely easier that way. Easier not to talk about the yellow way she'd dropped a _Dear John_ letter in a coat pocket for him, and easier not to talk about the secrets he'd kept from her that said maybe she never really had his heart.

Their unorthodox, clandestine romance is smoky and cinereal, the colour of heather; it's like cooling embers from the hottest fire. She had told him there would be no off the job, and yet it had been mere weeks before her late night visits to the basement had turned to his waking up early mornings to her slipping out of his grasp to sneak home and dress for work.

They did not assign labels to what they had, they did not talk about it—but they were comfortable. She trusts him, in the dove grey of their entanglement, and he protects her, and keeps it secret from her that he'd never stopped loving her, in the slate, lead-grey mist of the affair they engage in.

Grey is conservative, refined, dignified—it is long-lasting, inconspicuous, and authoritative.

Grey is a compromise, between the two extremes of black and white. Because to become white, he might have to forgive her—and he doesn't think he ever can. And to become black, she'd have to stop regretting what she did, and stop loving him—and she knows she never will.

Grey is their compromise. His way of never having to tell her how he feels under the pretense of still bearing a grudge, and her way of keeping him at arm's length and never having to be hurt under the pretense that there isn't really anything going on between them.

The only thing that is going on is everything.

They _are_ the grey area.

_**THE END**_

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**

_"There's a grey ghost runnin' through the night, an echo of the sadness and the pain-grey ghost runnin' through the night..." -Grey Ghost; Henry Paul Band. _

_*This anthology of colours is finally finished. Happy New Year, dear readers!  
Alexandra_


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